Research

Mixed

Incretin-based therapies (GLP-1RA and dual agonists) cause a mild absolute decrease in skeletal muscle mass and strength, but this is offset by a disproportionately larger loss of fat and liver mass, resulting in improved relative muscle-to-body-weight ratios and preserved or enhanced physical function.

If you are using incretin-based medications for weight loss, expect some loss of absolute muscle mass, but do not panic about 'wasting.' The medication preferentially burns fat and liver fat, which improves your muscle-to-weight ratio. Your strength and endurance often improve because you are carrying less weight. To maximize muscle retention, prioritize resistance training and adequate protein intake, as the drug itself does not protect muscle mass but does not disproportionately destroy it either.

GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
Overall, these data suggest that in middle-aged obese mice and men, incretin-based therapies do cause a mild decrease in absolute muscle mass and strength that is offset by a more pronounced decrease in fat and liver mass, resulting in an improved muscle to BW ratio, function, and mobility.
Henning T. Langer et al. · medRxiv · 2025

Why this rating

Combines multiple pre-clinical models and a human proof-of-concept trial, though the human study is small and short-term.

Source

Pharmacological weight loss with incretin-based therapies does not result in a disproportionate loss of muscle mass or function in obese mice and humans

Henning T. Langer et al. · medRxiv · 2025

DOI 10.1101/2025.07.28.25332295

preprint
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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